Seven Years That Seemed But Days

The Ground

Seven years is not a short wait by any measure, and scripture does not pretend otherwise. What it records instead is something remarkable about how Jacob experienced that long waiting: they seemed unto him but a few days. The waiting was real and lengthy, and yet something transformed how it was carried, for the love he had to her.

This is not a promise that every long wait will feel short. It is an observation about what love, genuine desire fixed on something worth waiting for, can do to the experience of time passing. The years did not shrink. Jacob’s capacity to bear them, sustained by what he was waiting for, expanded to meet them.

This offers a different question to ask in your own waiting, alongside how long will this take. What are you actually waiting for, and do you love it enough to let that love carry you through the actual years rather than merely counting them. Waiting endured only through gritted endurance feels different than waiting sustained by genuine desire.

Whatever your seven years currently looks like, ask today whether love, for what you are waiting for, for the one you are waiting on, might be part of what carries you through it, the way it carried Jacob through years that were real, and yet somehow seemed but a few days.